What are vocational courses and how can they help you in career?

Aug 27, 2018,
Swati Mittal

What are vocational courses?

Vocational courses are courses that are usually aimed at equipping students with practical skills for a specific profession or field. These courses are tailor-made to make students completely job ready. Hence, are often aimed at a specialized career and designed in a manner such as to help you upgrade your skills for that particular career.

Traditional courses v/s vocational courses

The traditional course like the engineering, B.A., B.Com and other such degrees are highly preferred by students. Most of these courses have a classroom teaching model wherein most of the subject knowledge is imparted to students in class in form of theories and case studies. Thier only experience of the practical stuff is through internships wherein they face a high gap between what they learned in class and what they face in the actual workplace.

While on the other hand in Vocational Courses, learning is imparted largely through practical on-site experience and less through classroom lectures. As the course is designed in a manner that when the students graduate they are completely ready for the job and require not much training in the basic working of things. By the time a student pursuing a vocational course is done with it he has loads of work experience to showcase thus, giving him an added advantage over his fellow applicants.

Benefits of pursuing a vocational course from a job perspective

More often than not vocational courses have a course module that allows students the opportunities for on-site training which later on counts for good loads of practical work experience in the field once they are finished with their course. Such courses have lesser classroom lectures allowing for students to learn the skill first hand by seeing it or putting it to use in actual scenarios or situations. It's more like an internship based courses wherein internships are more focused upon rather than the theories taught in classrooms. Hence, when a student passes out he has more work experience than his fellow applicants, he has been trained on site and thus a better investment for the employer as he would have to waste lesser resources training the new guy.

Why Student prefer traditional courses over vocational courses?

In our country higher education for a majority of people still means engineering, medical or a B.A., B.Sc. or B.Com degree. Pursuing a course in either one of these domains or similar ones is seen as highly reputable. It's a common belief that if you do one of these courses get can yourself a good job and your life will be all good. While on the other hand, vocational courses offer diplomas and not degrees which although gets the students a blue collar job it limits their growth prospects and also their chances at the higher education.

But, is it really the case for as we clearly know the number of students applying or pursuing the traditional courses has increased over the years but so has the number of unemployed college graduates. With sky-high cut-offs and cut-throat competitions, many students aren't able to even get themselves enrolled in these traditional courses.

Benefits of pursuing a vocational course

One of the major benefits of pursuing a vocational course is that you come out job ready. Some other benefits are as mentioned below -

• Combined benefit of traditional knowledge and vocational skills.

• Focus is mainly on specialized knowledge.

• The realistic insight of the industry for which the training is given.

• More dynamic as they make students aware of ongoing trends in the global market with the help of practical knowledge.

• Act as the bridge between the skilled manpower required and available in the market.

• Programs offered are shorter, less expensive and aimed at the needs of the industry.

• Most of the programs require high school completion with basic knowledge of Mathematics and English.

• They can be taken online as well because of the convenient and easy learning process.

Some of the most popular vocational courses in India are as follows:

Audio Engineering

Sound Engineering is a very sought after course these days. It helps one learn to operate the equipment and record music and audio tracks. The course mostly encompasses the technical aspect of music and communication broadcasting. As for the job prospects in the field, they are quite good and you can easily find employment at media houses and recording studios.

Forensic Scientist

If those mystery novels have always had a special appeal to you and if you fancy those crime experts in white coats and big laboratories then forensic science might be the perfect career choice for you. You can easily find online a good college offering a course in Forensic Science in India and pick one best suited to your requirements. Forensic Science is basically used to solve criminal disputes and involves the scientists to work closely with the intelligence and law enforcing institutions in the country. You can find work both in government and private sector forensic labs after successful completion of the course in this field.

Telecommunication

With the rise of newer technologies such as 3G and 4G, there has been a huge demand for qualified and skilled technicians in the field of telecommunication. The field of telecommunication has its presence in almost all major sectors from that of aviation, health, public utilities, defense and many others. After pursuing a course in this domain you can easily find a job as a testing engineering, software engineer, design development, marketing, research and many other fields. The popular companies that you can get hired by are Airtel, BSNL, Vodafone, Idea and others. Basically, you can find employment with any major telecommunications company in the country.

Photography

Photography is one of the most popular courses in this field. And it has come a long way from just wedding photography. There are so many different disciplines that you could specialize in from wildlife photography, product photography, event photography, portrait, travel, event, journalism and many other forms whatever suits your preferences or interest. As a professional photographer, you can find work both with some big organization in the media industry or also take up freelance projects and work as an individual unit. And the work of a professional photographer is a lot more than just taking photographs for it's also about using different perspectives, lightning techniques, position and other things. You can find jobs in photo studios, newspapers, magazines, advertising agencies and website design agencies.

Foreign Languages

The recent advancement in the technologies and the advent of the internet has made the world a global village. We are closer than ever before with brothers and sisters living in the far west. But one of the hindrances that we face when it comes to communicating or interacting with people beyond our geographical areas is the language. Each culture, each country, each community they all have their own language. While English may have become a common global tongue but there are still people who do not speak or do not understand English. And everyone prefers to speak in their own mother tongue in their homeland. Thus with growing presence of international organizations in India and India organizations in the world, there is a constant need for bilingual or multilingual people. Language experts are required to help run the business smoothly and communicate with foreign clients. Finding a job as a language translator, interpreter or any other job related to foreign languages is relatively easier than ever before. Also, a foreign language course not only helps you learn a new native language of a particular country but also helps you to learn the culture and way of life of the other country.

Hope this article helped you eradicate any or all doubts you had regarding vocational courses. For more such articles on career guidance please visit our website.